The Conor McGregor Effect — How Being On A Conor McGregor Card Impacts A Fighter’s Following
Conor McGregor is by far the biggest star the UFC and MMA has ever seen. He has 30 Million Instagram followers, the top 4 UFC Pay-Per-View buys of all time (all generating over 1 million purchases) and he was listed as the fourth highest paid athlete by Forbes in 2018. Conor is such a popular fighter, he even has the 2nd highest sold boxing Pay-Per-View in the only boxing fight he’s ever competed in against Floyd Mayweather, which sold 4.3 million. When taking all of this into consideration it’s clear Conor McGregor is kind of a big deal.
A common narrative has formed in MMA news coverage and mainstream popular media that fighting on the same event as Conor Mcgregor gives fighters the opportunity to become a star and make an obscene amount of money. Fighting on a Conor McGregor card was viewed as the golden ticket to life changing levels of fame. As a result, fighters in every weight class in the UFC from heavyweight to women’s flyweight began calling out Conor McGregor or trying to get on a Conor McGegor card. This trend was so pervasive that Conor McGregor himself coined the term “Red Pantie Night” to describe how excited fighters, and their partners, would be to successfully get on the same card as him so they could reap the perceived benefits. For SEO reasons, I’ve renamed the “Red Pantie Night”, to the Conor McGregor Effect.
Going into UFC 229, which was predicted to be the biggest UFC event in history, I decided to gather data to see if the Conor McGregor effect is real. Would fighters on the card see a noticeable increase in popularity? And if so, what could we learn about it?
For context, UFC 229 was centered around the bout between Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov. Conor is as entertaining outside of the cage as he is in it, with highlights of his trash talk and knockouts both receiving millions of views on YouTube. Khabib Nurmagomedov hails from the Dagestan region of Russia. He is an undefeated fighter and has a mythical ethos about him, partially because there are videos of him wrestling bears as a child. Many Americans with questionable Irish heritage and MMA “casual” fans were on the Conor hype-train, while Muslims all over the world and “hardcore” MMA fans tended to support Khabib.
The two fighters also carried grudges going into the fight which were the culmination of multiple incidences between the two entourages and biting trash talk. The climax of their prefight issues happened when Conor threw a dolly through the window of the bus Khabib and his manger were on.
All of this bad blood resulted in UFC 229 breaking the record for highest sold event in UFC history, selling 2.4 million Pay-Per-Views which was over a million more than second place. In the fight itself, Khabib Nurmagomedov had an incredibly dominate performance, submitting Conor McGregor in the fourth round.
Now, how can we tell if the fighters on this card had a meaningful increase in popularity? I decided to use the most popular metric nowadays, social media following, specifically number of Instagram followers. Instagram followers aren’t perfectly correlated to popularity, but they are a pretty good indicator. If a fighter experienced an increase in popularity, that fighter should also experience a relatively proportionate growth in Instagram following.
The night of Friday, October 5, twenty-four hours before UFC 229 happened, I took a screenshot of every single fighter on the card’s Instagram following in order to provide a baseline for each fighter’s popularity before the event. Then the night of October 7, twenty-four hours after UFC 229 took place, I took a screenshot of every fighter’s Instagram again.
So what did we learn big picture from this? As a whole, all 24 fighters on UFC 229 had a combined Instagram follower growth of about 5.1 million within the first 24 hours of the event. That is more than the population of the City of Los Angeles within 24 hours. Each fighter also averaged an increase of 212,000 followers.
Thus far, it seems the Conor McGregor Effect is real. 212,000 followers is a life changing amount, especially in one night! Average Instagram follower growth, however, was pulled up so much by Khabib and Conor, who went up 3.1 million and 1.1 million followers respectively, that the average is not representative of what most fighters actually experienced. Khabib alone made up 60% of total fighter follower increase and Conor by himself was responsible for an additional 20%. Leaving only another 20% to be split among the other 22 fighters on the card.
To get a better estimate of the “typical” growth a fighter experienced on UFC 229, the median is actually a more useful measurement in this instance. The median number of fighter Instagram follower growth on the biggest card in UFC history was only 3,950. In other words, 12 fighters had an increase of over 3,950 Instagram followers and 12 fighters experienced an increase of less than 3,950 new followers. For perspective, 3,950 is only about 0.08% of the total Instagram growth of all 24 fighters combined.
Half of the fighters on UFC 229 seeing an increase of less than 3,950 followers is hardly impressive. This can only mean the Conor McGregor Effect is incredibly exaggerated right? The Emperor has no clothes! Being on a Conor McGregor card is NOT the life chancing opportunity everyone makes it out to be!
Well the truth is more complicated than that.
UFC events are broken down into three segments, all of which are available on a different broadcasting platform. The PPV is the segment where Conor McGregor fights and where fans have to shell out $60 to watch (legally). The PPV is viewed as the most prestigious segment of a UFC event. Usually the most popular fighters are on that part of the card, because the UFC is incentivizing fans to buy the PPV. At UFC 229, there were ten fighters who were on the PPV.
The UFC also has the free TV Prelims that broadcast on the Fox Sports family of channels. The free TV Prelims have slightly less popular fighters who still have a bit of an established brand and following. The idea is that fans will get so hyped by the free TV Prelims that they’ll purchase the PPV. Essentially, the free TV Prelims act as a big commercial for the PPV, while also making the UFC that sweet, sweet television rights money. It also provides a platform for up and coming fighters to make a name for themselves, in theory. There were eight fighters on the free TV Prelims at UFC 229.
The last segment of a UFC show is the Early Prelims. The prelims to the prelims, if you will. The Early Prelims are only available through a UFC subscription/streaming service called Fight Pass. It’s similar to the Netflix of the UFC. Fight Pass is not a very popular service even though it has a lot of dope content, it is pretty much just for hardcore fans who love MMA. Actually, it is more like one of the streaming services with great content that no one has (Feeln, Mubi, Fandor etc), because everyone has Netflix. On the Early Prelims there were six fighters.
The Conor McGregor Effect was assumed to impact every segment of a UFC event. No one paid much attention to how which part of the card a fighter was put on would impact the fighter’s growth. After looking at the initial numbers, especially the HUGE difference between the average and median, I had a hypothesis that because the most eyes are going to be on the TV during the PPV, the closer a fighter was to the Conor McGregor fight on the card, the better that fighter’s chance of receiving a large increase. Being on the Early Prelims wouldn’t do much, if anything, to increase fighter’s following. The Free TV Prelims might do a bit better, but neither would compare to the increase fighters on the PPV experienced.
Let’s start with the first segment that was broadcast the night of UFC 229, the Early Prelims. The combined Instagram follower growth of all six fighters on the Early Prelims was just 10,004 followers. The average Instagram follower growth was 1,667 and the median was only 941 meaning three fighters grew less than a grand. To make matters worse, Yana Kunitskaya accounted for 62% of total Instagram growth on the Early Prelims with her “astounding” 6,200 follower growth. So far, our hypothesis is looking pretty solid. The fact that you’re on the same event as Conor McGregor doesn’t seem to do you jack if you’re all the way down in the Early Prelims.
But maybe we can attribute such low growth to the broadcasting platform. The Early Prelims are just on Fight Pass, after all. Most people don’t have that service, so maybe that’s what is driving down the numbers. In contrast, the Free TV prelims should be the most accessible portion of UFC 229. Total Instagram follower growth for all eight fighters on the Free TV Prelims combined was just 20,621. Average growth was a measly 2,578 and the median was a paltry 1,211. To make matters worse for seven of the fighters on the Free TV Prelims, Aspen Ladd accounted for almost 50% of total growth out of all 8 fighters with her 9,800 follower increase. Hardly a life changing increase in followers.
To illustrate how insignificant the level of growth for both of the prelims is, when we combine the total Instagram growth of the Early Prelims and the Free TV Prelims the growth is just 30,625. That’s only 0.6% of total Instagram follower growth for all 24 fighter on the card, while the ten fighters on the PPV saw 99.4% of total fighter growth. The Conor McGregor Effect definitely doesn’t seem to be doing much for fighters if they are not on the PPV.
If we take the growth Conor McGregor and Khabib saw out of the equation, leaving us with just the eight other fighters who were on the PPV, there was only a total Instagram follower increase of 773,134. This takes the average Instagram growth for the other eight fighters down to 96,642 and decreases the median down to just 28,650. Without the enormous growth Conor and Khabib experienced pulling everything up, we lost 5 million in total growth, 400,000 in average growth and 40,000 in median growth. When the numbers are compared to the growths experienced by the fighters on the Early Prelims and Free TV Prelims, however, the fighters on the PPV were in a different stratosphere.
After breaking the numbers down by event segment, we can definitively say the Conor McGregor Effect applies to his opponent and greatly benefits the other fighters on the PPV, but there does not seem to be much, if any, benefit for the fighters on either of the prelim segments. So if you’re a fighter who wants to experience the life altering Conor McGregor Effect, you NEED to do everything in your power to be on the PPV with Conor.
This still doesn’t tell the whole story. There’s another crucially important way to group each fighter on the card. Half the fighters won their fights, and the other half lost. Categorically across the whole card, winners grew much more than their opponent who lost. Common sense and pop culture would seem to explain this. Fans of sports love winners, people do not care about losers.
There were twelve fights on UFC 229, so there were twelve winners and twelve losers. The total Instagram growth for the twelve winners was 3.9 million. So half of the fighters on the card accounted for almost 80% of the combined Instagram growth of all 24 fighters. The average increase for winners was 327,526 and the median was 8,000. 8,000 sounds like nothing, but the median for the card as a whole was only about 4,000, so the median of the twelve winners was about twice as much as the 24 fighters as a whole.
Taking a look at the twelve losers really completes the picture. The twelve losers only made up about 20% of total fighter Instagram growth on the whole card. The losers squeaked out a growth of 1.1 million combined and most of that was from Conor. The average was still 97,787, which sounds like a lot, but is still less than 1/3 of the winners. The median for the losers was only 1,150, that’s 1/4 of the median of the card as a whole and 1/8 of the median of the winning fighters. It paid to be a winning fighter across the board.
All 24 fighters regardless of winning or losing still increased their following by being on the card, except for one fighter on the Free TV Prelims, Alan Patrick. He lost 100 fans in the 24 hours after UFC 229. That’s how much people don’t support losers in MMA, being on UFC 229 actually hurt his Instagram following.
We’ve been able to learn two critical factors that need to be in place if a fighter wants to take advantage of the Conor McGregor Effect. The fighter needs to be on the PPV with Conor and the fighter needs to win their fight! When we take this broad strokes, trends focused approach, we’re getting a lot of good information, but we’re also losing out on some really interesting analysis that can be gleaned by examining a few of the individual fighters.
I’m about to make the seemingly most obvious statement in the long and storied history of MMA social media analysis. Fighters who did something during their fight or in their post fight interview to stand out, or who had a characteristic about them as a person that made them stand out grew the most. I know, I know what a hot take, but it is really cool how clearly the data shows this.
Let’s start on the Early Prelims again, where Yana Kunitskawa had by far the largest Instagram follower growth. Whats special about Yana? Well, there was only one women’s fight on the Early Prelims, and Yana won it. When you take all six fighters on the Early Prelims she easily stood out the most.
Jumping up to the Free TV Prelims. Again there was only one women’s fight on the Free TV Prelims, which Aspen Ladd won. Guess who showed the highest growth of any fighter on the Free TV Prelims, Aspen Ladd! Aspen Ladd experienced a growth of 9,800, a 76% increase in growth for her. She only had 12,800 followers before the event started and she had 22,600 in the 24 hours afterwards.
Aspen didn’t just win her fight, she really stood out when looking at every other fighter on the card. She has a very girl next door vibe. My wife identified with and liked her. She seemed like she would go from the cage kicking someone’s ass and then go straight to Starbucks to get a vanilla soy latte with extra foam. It was a cool dichotomy.
Ladies are killing it, the top growing fighter in the Early Prelims and the Free TV Prelims were both women. Going into this I did not expect to see women growing by such a huge margin over their male counterparts.
Then we get to the PPV. One of the other largest standouts on the card was Derrick Lewis, and not just because he’s a heavyweight. Derrick Lewis was in a slobber knocker fight, where he got his ass kicked for 99% of the fight, but managed to come back and knockout his opponent in the last 30 seconds of the fight.
Then, Lewis took off his shorts, slung them over his shoulder and stood in the octagon wearing just his boxers. In the post fight interview, when Joe Rogan asked him why he decided to derobe, Lewis simply answered “cause my balls was hot.” The crowd went wild. The internet went crazy. Then Joe Rogan plugged Derrick Lewis’ Instagram on air, telling everyone watching that Lewis has the best Instagram.
What happens when take all these factors and throw them into the blender of social media? Derrick Lewis who started at 434,000 followers before the fight, sees a 507,000 growth on Instagram, getting to 941,000 in 24 hours. Over the next week and a half he continues this growth, ending up with 1.3 million followers. Lewis experienced a jaw dropping 116% growth in the first 24 hours and then a 200% growth over the next week and a half. Derrick Lewis showed the third largest increase in Instagram followers of anyone on the card.
As will surprise absolutely no one, the two fighters with the largest increase in Instagram following were Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmogomedov. Conor increased 1.1 million followers in the first 24 hours despite his loss. He was already so big, however, that this was only a 4% increase. For any other fighter, this type of growth would be life altering, but Conor is such a huge star already that he lost, was pretty dominated, and still pulled these numbers. That speaks for itself how big of a brand he is and how much he has transcended the sport of MMA, especially when you compare it to the virtually nonexistent growth almost every other losing fighter on the card experienced.
The massive growth Khabib Nurmagomedov experienced puts him in a different class altogether than any other fighter on the card, including Conor. Khabib finished Conor, then jumped the cage and started a brawl with Conor McGregor’s teammates. The purpose of this article isn’t to analyze the brawl, the factors that went into starting it or to assign blame, but what is relevant is that the brawl received colossal coverage both on social media and mainstream news coverage.
Khabib was already going to receive a lot of attention for beating Conor McGregor, but the brawl blew this thing into the stratosphere. Khabib Nurmagomedov had 6.2 million followers 24 hours before UFC 229. Twenty-four hours after the fight, Khabib Nurmagomedov had 9.4 million followers. He grew 3.2 million in just 24 hours. That’s an increase of 51% when he already had 6 million followers. That is obscene.
To put it in perspective, that 3.2 million growth Khabib showed is more people than the population of 21 of the 50 states in the US. Absolutely ludicrous numbers. Khabib’s growth only continued over the next week and a half fueled by all the news coverage and online discussion of the post fight brawl. He grew 6.5 million in the week and a half after the fight. That’s 104% growth and it left him at 12,.7 million followers. Khabib doubled his following when he already had 6 million. That doesn’t happen. This is most likely the largest Instagram growth a fighter has every experienced in a 24 hour period.
We started this case study trying to figure out if the Conor McGregor Effect exists. The Conor McGregor Effect exists, but as an opportunity not a certainty. It is a chance for fighters to do something, anything, to take advantage of the higher number of eyeballs that Conor McGregor brings.
As a fighter, there are two things you need to do, in order to even give the the Conor McGregor Effect the possibility to help you out. You need to be on the PPV and you need to win your fight. Then you need at least one of the following factors in addition to actually get people invested in you: an amazing performance during the fight, a funny or memorable post fight interview and/or something unique about you as a person. If a fighter can do more than one of these things they’ll experience tremendous growth.
Ultimately, the ability to take advantage of the Conor McGregor Effect is in the hands of each individual fighter on the card. There’s a reason fighters want the opportunity to get on a McGregor card, but fighters are remiss if they think getting on his card, and even winning on a Conor card is sufficient. That simply gets their foot in the door to then do something with the opportunity. Successfully getting on the McGregor card isn’t the achievement in and of itself.
There is a common misconception that an Instagram following is a shallow, ultimately meaningless metric by which popularity is measured but is otherwise rather useless. This perspective misses out on the fact that an Instagram following gives people and, specifically, fighters the tools to make a LOT of money. An Instagram following of 500,000 or even 100,000 followers gives an influencer the opportunity to land brand deals and endorsements lucrative enough to make a living.
It also gives fighters a platform with which to market any other business venture they have going forward. So when fighters are showing these insane 24-hour growths of 500,000, 100,000, 80,0000, etc, this is money in their pockets going forward for the rest of their life, even when they retire from fighting, as long as they keep making content that is interesting for their followers. It isn’t just Instagram following, its also future earning and revenue potential. A “life changing” level of Instagram growth is anywhere from 50,000 new followers and up in 24 hours.
There’s a big problem with how we looked at the Conor McGregor Effect. We didn’t actually compare how the growth fighters on UFC 229 experienced compares to any other UFC fight card. The growth that we saw might not be related to Conor McGregor, it could be that the fighters on every other event shows similar growth numbers (aside from Khabib and Conor themselves which were definitely extraordinary). If we truly want to understand how the Conor McGregor effect works, we need to compare the numbers that we just examined together with a different, non-McGregor card and see how they stack up. We have no idea! But maybe there’s a follow up case study there!